


Under Moonlight, Darkly

by traceExcalibur



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Vampires/Werewolves, F/M, Vampires, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-12-25
Updated: 2012-04-12
Packaged: 2017-10-28 03:28:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/303236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traceExcalibur/pseuds/traceExcalibur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Karkat Vantas and Kanaya Maryam are two completely normal people living in the very normal town of Skaia, except for the fact that she glows, he steals blood from the blood bank, and they're both vampires. Jade Harley is a completely normal girl volunteering at the very normal Skaia General Hospital, except she has ears and a tail, and she's a werewolf.<br/>And when Feferi Peixes ends up in the hospital with bite wounds on her neck, Karkat and Jade's lives are set to change forever...</i>
</p><p>An AU fic in which Karkat and Kanaya are vampires, Jade is a werewolf, and shenanigans ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Karkat Vantas never _wanted_ to become a vampire. No-one ever really _wants_ to become a vampire, except for delusional girls and daredevil guys and people who go seeking thrills where thrills should never be sought. But, lying on the side of the road with his mutant red blood spilling out, his meddlesome vampire friend trying to pull him to safety and the culling squad advancing fast, he’d been left with no other choice.

And now here he was, skulking through the empty and silent corridors of Skaia General Hospital, looking for a meal. His thin and bony frame flitted from shadow to shadow, creeping around and avoiding the light spilling from what few rooms were still occupied by waking souls, or from the snack machines that were mysteriously illuminated even though most of the power was off for the night. Though his balance was good, he was clumsy and noisy when it came to sneaking around, and he was lucky that vampires had the natural ability to blend with the darkness. His pale grey skin and black clothing also helped him greatly – they were hard to see against the walls. With his petite orange horns nestled in his messy hair, only his eyes stood out.

As he moved, delicious scents – blood being spilled in surgical chambers, open wounds oozing sweet nectar – assailed him from all angles. It was too dangerous to move into the open. He could easily run into a doctor, or a patient on a late-night trip to the bathroom, and he’d be caught red-handed.

Footsteps echoed down the corridor and he stopped dead, pressing himself flush against a vending machine. Light from a high-powered flashlight shone into the hallway. It was being held by a girl, one of the volunteers who worked at the hospital, doing odd jobs. As she walked past him, he saw long, black hair, a green cap, and striped socks. It was a familiar outfit. He recognized the girl immediately.

What the fuck was Jade Harley doing there?

He knew her well, though he wished she didn’t. She attended the same literature class he did, and she was a constant annoyance. She had a perky, bubbly attitude, two ridiculous teeth constantly marring her expression, unceasing brightness spilling from her maw…but only for other people. For him she reserved only the most callous and irritable expressions she could muster. Something about him set her off, and he had no idea why. It was infuriating.

Worse still, she was a monster like him. He could tell by the scent of her blood and by her weird, yipping giggles. She was a werewolf, with her ears tucked under the cap and her tail kept hidden beneath long skirts. And she, unlike him, was not an outcast. She could hide her true form easily, she could go on and have friends, and a life. She didn’t have to move every few months, or drink blood to keep herself from fainting. What did she do to deserve it? She was pathetic. And something about her…it ticked him off too, it sent his blood – well, figurative blood – boiling, and his hands shaking and he just wanted to grab her and…and do what? He didn’t even know, but it surely wasn’t something pleasant.

She hummed a little tune to herself, bouncing up and down lightly as she walked. His hands balled up into fists and he almost moved. Then she turned the corner, the sound faded, and he relaxed. He crept back into the hallway and resumed his path through the hospital. Idly, he wondered why she had switched to a night shift. She usually preferred to be out and about in the mornings, especially since she had class or two in the evening.

He then idly wondered why he knew her schedule so well.

A light flickered on in a nearby room and he ducked under the window to avoid being spotted. Creeping past it, he turned a corner and found himself facing the room he was looking for; the blood bank. The door was sealed tight with a multitude of locks. For any normal person it would be damn near impossible to get in without the keys, and the keys were kept very safe. Blood theft was a serious problem for some hospitals, especially with vampires roaming around.

Unfortunately, nobody had quite figured out how the vampires were breaking in without the keys. Karkat leaned in close to the wall and let the shadows of the night envelop him. His body shifted, and bubbled, and dissolved into an ethereal, murky state. It felt painful and crushing and airy all at once, and in this form he slipped through the tiniest crack in the door, and bypassed the locks entirely. His body reformed intact on the other end, but the strain left him even hungrier and weaker than before.

The air was alive with the aroma of blood, at times ambrosial, but still sickening to what part of him used to be mortal. He sniffed out the healthiest, most delicious packs he could find, tracing them to a freezer labelled “E”. He forcefully pried the door open and ripped a blood pack open with his teeth, guzzling down its sanguine contents. Something clicked in the hallway outside him, but he paid it no mind. Instead, he grabbed another pack, tore it open, and continued feeding.

There was another click, and a sudden creak from behind him, and before he could move the door burst open by the hinges and a bright light silhouetted him against the wall. The door slammed shut behind the intruder.

“I know what you are!!” rang out behind him; it was a young, female voice, and one that he recognized immediately. He slowly straightened up, shrugged his shoulders, and turned around. Blood still dripping from his fangs, he swallowed, and assumed the cockiest look he could muster while still frowning. His deep black eyes met Jade Harley’s brilliant green; her gaze flickered to his mouth for a moment, and then snapped back up.

“Oh, well isn’t that fucking fantastic?” he asked, clapping his hands sarcastically. “Jade Harley knows what I am! Care to elaborate further, bucktoothed wonder? What, exactly, am I? A chipmunk? An alien from another universe? What astonishing and surely intelligent conclusion have you managed to reach?”

“Don’t mock me!” she snarled, and he was taken aback by the edge in her voice. Her flashlight wavered in her hand, which was shaking. “You’re a vampire!”

“And how did you figure that out? Was it the fact that I attend night courses only? My reclusive behavior? The pallid complexion, like I walked into a stone wall one day and all the fucking colour in my face stuck to it? Or…” he continued, creeping closer to her and baring his fangs. “Is it the fact that I stole into the hospital and broke into the blood bank?”

“I noticed all of those things,” she said, “And I also noticed that your reflection didn’t appear when you walked past glass, and when you tripped and fell you never ever bled, _and_ I noticed that ever since you moved here there have been blood packs going missing from the hospital!”

“Hmph, big fucking deal. Like it wasn’t entirely obvious right from the get-go. You’re nothing special, but the other assholes in this town are bordering on complete mental deficiency. It says a lot that this is the first town I’ve spent more than a few weeks gallivanting around before somebody blew the vamp-whistle and ran us out.”

He shrugged and meandered over to one of the drawers, and began rummaging through it, looking for a delicious looking sample.

“But that’s not going to happen, this time.” he said, as he pulled out a suitable pack.

“Why not?” Jade asked, and he noted the slightest bit of fear in her voice. Perhaps she finally realized she was in over her head…or that he knew more about her than he let on.

“Because,” he practically whispered, as he turned back to look at her, “I know what you are, too.”

Jade tensed up and fear flashed across her face to match her shaking voice, but she still feigned bravery.

“Are you trying to make me scared?! What do you mean you know what I am!”

“Why don’t we cut the crap, and instead of spending minutes arguing back and forth like wigglers in a pre-schoolfeeding argument, you take your cap off?”

“What? Why would I—“

It was too late; rather than wait for her to finish speaking, Karkat lunged forwards and grabbed at her head. His hand, bony and just slightly clawed, latched onto the cap and pulled it away from her head. She flailed and nearly screamed as she pushed him away with surprising force, but he fell back victorious; a small headband clattered to the ground along with her cap, and two tufty white ears emerged from beneath her hair. They were covered in fur and pinkish on the inside, and looked as though they belonged on a dog more than they did on her.

She launched herself at him and a hand – with fingers ending in claws – found his throat. She slammed him against the ground and growled, baring surprisingly sharp teeth. Her eyes, which normally shone with a bright and cheery emerald, narrowed and darkened. Now it was he whose fear betrayed his menacing expression.

“WHOA, FUCK, hold on Harley! You make a racket here and the other guards will come flocking like moths to a goddamn flame, and then we’re BOTH outed as freaks!”

“I could tear your throat out right now, idiot!” she shouted, and he nearly flinched.

“But you won’t. You don’t have the fucking guts, do you?”

She paused and reared back – a moment’s hesitation, and she paid dearly for it. He bucked up against her and managed to catch her in the stomach with a knee; as she retched, he pushed himself up and knocked her backwards, far enough away that she couldn’t hurt him.

“Well? Do you?” he snarled. “There haven’t been any killings when there’s a full moon out, so I’m going to posit that you haven’t killed a single living thing in your entire fucking life. You’re all bark and less than zero bite.”

Jade’s anger ceded, if only enough to keep her from lunging at him again. Karkat could tell that he was right, and he stole satisfaction from her grimace; he knew she loathed the fact that he was winning the argument.

“No, I haven’t killed anyone,” she said, sighing, “And every full moon I go out into the woods so I wouldn’t be able to hurt someone even if I wanted to. But that’s a good thing! Because I’m not a murderer like you!”

“Hmph, like I care what you think of me,” he said. One hand slid into his pocket, and while he distracted her with his speech, he took hold of his cell phone and started fiddling around with it. “In any case, you’re not going to do fuck all to stop me. Try something now, and the other guards will hear it, and find you. Try it later, I tell everyone that you’re a werewolf, and then you get to find out what a merry fucking livelihood it is, running from town to town all your goddamned life!”

“No one would believe you if you told them!” she yelled.

He smirked, pulled out the phone, and in a flash he sealed her fate. She flinched and jumped backwards, nearly propelling herself into a filing cabinet. He waited while she shook her head, dazed, and then glared back up at him.

“You asshole!!” she shouted, but she didn’t move. He had her.

“There. Now I have proof that you’re a werewolf, and you’ve got abso-fucking-lutely nothing on me! In case you forgot, when it comes to cameras I’m as tangible as a phantom, so you can scream and point and work yourself into an exhausted heap of snivelling, whimpering woofs, but you’re never going to prove a single thing.”

She was nearly in tears, a desperate look in her eyes, but she was still brimming with anger nonetheless.

“Don’t tell anyone, jackass! I can’t let anyone find out about this, you can’t ruin my life like that!”

He scowled and fished through a cabinet for another few blood packs. Like an obedient puppy, Jade just stood back and watched him. She had no choice.

“Don’t you have any idea how blackmail works, shitsponge? I won’t tell a soul, but in return, nobody finds out about _my_ little secret. I’m taking this blood, and you’re sitting back like a good little girl and letting me. Got it?”

He slipped the packs into his satchel and headed over to the window. Typical hospital security in a town like this – they locked the door to the blood bank thrice over, but left an easily-breakable window in the room. He thrust his arm out and smashed the window; the glass carved the arm up, but with no blood to spill the wounds could only sting, and not truly hurt him. He stepped onto the windowsill and prepared to leap out.

“I am going to make you pay!” Jade called from behind him. “You can’t just attack one of my friends and get away with it!”

Karkat froze.

“…attack? What the spinerending fuck…?”

“Argh, don’t lie about it! I saw the bite wounds last night, right on her neck! You attacked Feferi Peixes, and she almost died because of you!”

Karkat frowned. An attack? Kanaya wouldn’t do something like that…was there another vampire in town?

“Look, Harley, I didn’t attack anyone, and if you think I did you’re obviously stupider than I thought. You’re barking up the wrong frond nub here.”

“Yeah right! Listen, I’m going to—“

He didn’t stop to find out what she was going to do. Arguing with her would prove pointless and needless aggravation was not something he needed. He flipped his middle finger and let himself fall backwards, tumbling from the window to the ground, three stories below him. He fell into the shadow’s caress and landed harmlessly on his back, and fled into the forest to keep out of sight. A flashlight shone from the window, and he felt Jade Harley’s glare chasing him all the way back home.

 

* * *

 

Karkat slipped out of the forest a few blocks away from the hive where he and Kanaya lived.  The street was empty and the air deathly still. At this hour, nobody was out and about except for him and a few rowdy teens.  There was a small newspaper dispenser on the street corner, and a trash can beside it. Rooting through the trash, Karkat found a discarded newspaper, and the front-page article confirmed Jade’s story.

Feferi had been studying late at the university library. She was supposed to return to her dorm at 11, and when she didn’t, her roommate went to look for her. She found Feferi lying against a building wall near the library, bleeding out and unconscious. She was taken to the hospital in critical condition, and while she was expected to recover, it would take a while. It was just as well that she didn’t die from the bite – the last thing Karkat needed was _another_ vampire running around town. Unfortunately, the police had been unable to identify the attacker, and had no primary suspects. They were planning on interviewing Feferi when she recovered, but Karkat had a feeling that there would be another attack before then. He would have to go see her as soon as possible.

Two pictures were given in the article. The first was her school portrait.  Feferi wasn’t Karkat’s idea of beautiful by any means, with stringy long hair and a creepy, shark-like smile, but judging by the second picture the vampire attack had done her further disservice. It was blurry as though taken from a distance and zoomed digitally. Lying unconscious on an ambulance stretcher, her face was pale, and a bloodied, purplish-pink rag was wrapped around her neck. What a sloppy job – the attacker had nearly ripped her jugular out. He or she was clearly inexperienced.

Karkat reached his home—it was a small hive in one of the more slum-like neighborhoods of town. The hive had ratty wooden panelling around the outside, and graffiti staining the back entrance. It was subject to the occasional vandal, but he put up with it, because it was far from the prying eyes of the concerned public and from the police. He glided through the front entrance and into the dining room, tossing the newspaper and his satchel onto the table.

Kanaya had learned to conduct herself with grace after sweeps upon sweeps of life as a vampire, but voracious hunger always got the best of her. Without even greeting him, she swooped down toward the satchel and opened it up, picking out a pack of blood and violently sucking it dry. He frowned, and she looked at him sheepishly.

“Sorry.” she said, sitting back and resuming a dainty posture. She was wearing a simple red dress with odd, jagged patterns. Her skin glowed a very faint white – whether it was caused by the vampirism or something else, Karkat had never asked. She had two silvery, bauble-like earrings hanging from her ears. Her refined clothing and mannerisms suggested she had been alive for decades; her body was the opposite, looking as though it had quit growing, just slightly before she reached adulthood.

She dabbed at her bloodied mouth with a handkerchief and spoke again. “I am glad to see you have returned without being caught.”

“Hate to burst your happy little bubble but I _was_ caught. By that Harley girl.”

Kanaya tensed up and glared at him, her demeanour shifting back towards aggression.

“Hold the fuck up,” he said, raising one hand to quell her anger while rooting through their fridge with the other. “It’s not the end of the world. I’ve got proof that she’s a werewolf, if she goes barking at the authorities – hell, if she so much as _implies_ we might be vampires, I am going to make what little remains of her life into a torturous hellfire from which she will _never_ escape.”

Karkat pulled a frozen stick of jerky from the fridge and began tearing at it. Food did nothing for him but he couldn’t help eat anyways – old habits died hard.

“You should still exercise more care, I think you overestimate yourself. And you are being hyperbolic, your flighty crush on this girl would never allow you to—“

“Crush? CRUSH?” Karkat sputtered, the jerky hanging out of his mouth. “What in the name of Barack Obana’s hairy rear end are you talking about?”

“I have known you for long enough to understand your inability to feel true hate towards anyone, and you would not obsess over a girl like this for any other reason than flushed emotion. This is an immutable fact that I am stating right now.”

“Love isn’t an emotion, fucknuts, and it’s NOT what I’m feeling right now.”

“Sure.” Kanaya said. She brushed past him and filed the remaining blood packs into the fridge for later consumption.

“Look,” said Karkat, crossing his arms and leaning against the table, “I have more important shit to do than stand around and deliberate the status of my nonexistent romantic life with you. Do you know a girl named Feferi Peixes?”

Kanaya tilted her head quizzically.

“I do not think I have heard of her.”

“She was nearly killed last night. Someone mistook her jugular for an all-you-can-fucking-eat buffet. So unless some shithive maggots lunatic is cavorting around town fresh from the looneyblock, it must be another vampire.”

Kanaya furrowed her brows and stared at the newspaper on the table. “That isn’t good.” she said, after some thought.

“No shit, Sherlock Trollmes,” Karkat said, exasperated. “What a grade-A deduction that was!”

“Thank you.”

“IT WASN’T A FUCKING COMPLIMENT!! …look. We have to find the vampire and teach them some fucking subtlety before they spark a hunt and everything goes down the load gaper for us.”

Kanaya nodded. “On that I think we can both agree.”

Karkat sighed, and a yawn escaped him. Vampires did not necessarily need sleep like mortals did, but a few days without rest would result in mild sleep deprivation anyways. Generally, they would rest during the daytime, and prowl about at night. And no, contrary to popular belief, they did not sleep in coffins. The sane ones didn’t, at least, and Karkat wasn’t very eager to meet the kind of vampire who would think coffins the kind of place to get a good night’s rest.

“Anyway, I’m going to take a power nap and recharge before going to look for the fuckwit who attacked that Peixes girl. Good night, day, whatever, I don’t fucking care.”

“Good night,” Kanaya said, “And sleep well.”

She stood up and gave him a peck on the forehead. Her lips were coated with jade-green lipstick and cold as ice – they sent shivers down his spine and left a little stain on his skin. He flailed and tried to push her away, snarling.

“WILL YOU STOP DOING THAT? Jesus shitsplinter, you’re not my mother!”

“At twelve sweeps your senior, I may as well be.” she said with a smirk, and she glided off into the living room, leaving Karkat a spluttering, angry mess.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karkat visits Feferi at the hospital and investigates the vampire attack. Along the way, he encounters a drunken secretary, Fef's melodramatic boyfriend, and a very suspicious Jade.

The morning brought with it clammy weather – skies clouded over, rain spitting down in unpredictable bursts, and sunlight only barely peeking down onto the land. Karkat, unfortunately, had to consider dismal conditions like this a blessing. Without the sun bearing down on him he could stroll about during the daytime without fear. More importantly, he could go to see Feferi during the regular hospital visiting hours.

He slipped downstairs to find Kanaya reading one of her trashy romance novels. He breezed past her with the usual greeting, “Morning, fuck you, see you later,” and left immediately. She didn’t even look up from her book.

He was dressed in a dark brown hoodie with the hood pulled up – just in case any stray beams of light caught him – and simple black jeans. He looked completely normal, if a little reclusive and punkish…exactly the kind of image he liked to cultivate for himself. It kept people from getting too close to him.

The streets were empty except for the occasional car splashing down the rain-soaked road. Most of the people in the town were either at school or work; Karkat felt the slightest bit of relief knowing that Jade should be in her mechanics class, and wouldn’t interfere with his investigation. He made his way down to the edge of the forest, and stopped. The quickest route to the hospital was straight through the brush, but in broad daylight it would make him look suspicious. He would, instead, have to cross a highway overpass that ran on a bridge right through the middle of the woods. It was a little out of his way, but it took him straight to the heart of downtown Skaia. It had the added benefit of keeping him away from the annoying, slimy frogs that infested the forest.

Once he had passed the highway, Karkat emerged on Queen’s Road, the main route through the downtown area. To his left there was a large, marble plaza with all sorts of shops and attractions. Past the plaza lay Prospit University, where he did his studies. Outside the main University entrance was a gigantic, golden statue, depicting two chess pieces – the King and Queen. Skaia General Hospital was situated further down Queen’s Road; an exit curved up towards a small hill atop which the hospital sat, right at the edge of the forest. Karkat followed the road up to the main entrance and strode into the reception area.

The receptionist was a young woman with curly blonde hair. She had a haze in her eyes and a smell to her blood that suggested a hangover, and she looked up at Karkat with half-lidded eyes and a sultry smile.

“Howsit goin’, sweet cheeks? Feeling under the weather?”

Karkat scowled. “Look, unless you’re telling me what room Feferi Peixes is in, you can shut your fucking flap. Got it?”

“I’ll tell you if you come drinking with me tonight, baby.” she mewled, fluttering her eyelashes.

“Forget it, I’ll find someone who isn’t determined to waste my time.”

He turned and began to stomp away, but she spoke again with a more serious edge to her voice and it stopped him dead.

“Room 216. And no neck-biting! The poor girl has already had enough of that, wink wink nudge.”

He swung back to look at her, mouth agape with a mixture of terror and fury, only to find her wiggling her fingers at him with a vacant expression.

“Something the matter, cutie?”

He shook his head and walked away, hoping that it had just been his imagination.

 

* * *

 

 

When Karkat reached room 216, he crumpled to his knees as a powerful, _wonderful_ odour attacked his senses. Tyrian blood. It was no wonder that Feferi had been attacked. Her blood colour was one of the rarest shades possible, and a delicacy to vampires. What in the world was a girl like that doing in a place like this? Karkat took a moment to steady himself, stood back up, and opened the door.

Surprisingly, Feferi’s room was unlocked and unguarded – apparently, nobody in this hick town expected there to be another attack so soon after the first. Karkat strolled in without any fuss raised. Feferi was alone, propped up on the bed with IV tubes stuck into her veins, bandages wrapped all around her injured neck, and a remote in her hands. The TV was turned on and it was playing a documentary about whales. Feferi was entranced, smiling a toothy smile at the blubbery fish on the screen.

Karkat stepped forwards and cleared his throat.

“Ok, so, before you flip the fuck out, just hear me out. I know a vampire attacked you, and I’m going to find them and hand them their ass and basically make sure they never fuck up anyone’s neck ever again, ok? Sound good? Alright, are we cool? Ok. And now that the pleasantries have been sorted right the fuck out, who was the grubfondling cockbuckler who bit you?”

Feferi turned to him and raised an eyebrow. She made an odd glubbing noise – probably the best she could manage with her throat scratched up.

“Fuck, you can’t talk…ok, ok, can you write down the name of who bit you?”

She did nothing.

“Are you scared of him or something?”

She shook her head.

“Of me?”

Again, she shook her head. Karkat put a hand on his head, exasperated.

“THEN WHAT THE FUCK'S YOUR PROBLEM?!" he yelled, and then grimaced. He didn't want to blow the interrogation by losing his temper. He swallowed loudly and cleared his throat, trying to calm himself. "You did see him, right?”

She didn’t move – she only looked past him and her eyes widened. Karkat turned just in time to see a swath of spiky purple hair, and then a hand caught him in the gut and shoved him aside. He crashed into the wall and slid to the ground, grimacing.

“Get your ass out ‘a the fuckin’ w-way stranger,” came a whiny voice from above Karkat. For some reason, he enunciated his ‘w’ twice. “That’s my girlfriend you’re mackin’ on!”

Karkat looked up and blinked a few times. Standing where he had been a moment ago was a remarkably douchey looking man. His hair was slicked up with a purple spike in the front. He had black glasses with thick frame. Beneath them, his mouth was contorted into a confident smirk, sharp teeth barely visible behind his lips. He had a ridiculous purple cape on, and beneath it he was wearing a striped blue scarf, equally striped pants, and a black shirt advertising some emo band called “Aquarium Nine”. Karkat couldn’t smell the man’s blood – perhaps because Feferi’s ambrosial scent was overpowering it – but he suspected from the purple and blue clothing that he was a highblood of some sort.

“Oh, my dearest babe Fef, I am so, so sorry ‘bout the attack!” he said, throwing a hand to his forehead melodramatically. “I’ve got ‘a be more careful, it’d be real inconsiderate a’ me to let somethin’ like this happen to you again!”

Karkat stood up, grumbling.

“Hey, fucktard, would you mind _NOT_  throwing me into a wall next time? And for the love of merciful musclebeasts, talking to a girl and macking on her are not the same thing, asshole.”

“Yeah, whatever,” the purple-haired man said, waving his hand around. “Just get out ‘a here an’ leave my girlfriend an’ I alone.”

“I’m trying to find the person who attacked her, you inconsiderate fuck!”

The man glared at Karkat and pushed him back up against the wall. Feferi glubbed frantically at him, and he relented.

“You don’t got ‘a do nothin’ about that, understand?” he snarled. “I’v-ve got it all under control!”

“If it’s under control, why, for fuck’s sake, is she laid up in the hospital with a hole in her neck? Your ‘under control’ is the apparent functional equivalent of ‘all hell is breaking loose, please send help in the form of a nubby horned asshole, thanks in advance for that’!”

Feferi glubbed again, sounding more impatient. She gestured to a pen and notebook that were laid next to her bed. Ignoring Karkat, the purple-haired man perked up and swooped over to them, picking them up.

“Ah, right, right! Sorry for forgettin’ about you, love. I got caught up in the arguin’ and forgot ‘a comfort you while you’re laid up in here, bein' useless an’ shit.” He sat down with the pen in hand and began sketching something in the book. “You want me to pen you a magnificent picture – self portrait ‘a your unendin’ beauty, even – an’ show how much I care, right?”

Feferi stared at him, incredulous. She looked over at Karkat pleadingly, pointing first to her boyfriend and then to the door. Karkat sighed and took the man by the arm, pulling him away from his seat.

“Come on, asshole, let’s give the princess some quiet time.”

Karkat twisted the lock on the door, and shoved Feferi’s boyfriend out of the room. He soon followed, and he slammed the door shut behind him. The lock clicked into place.

“W-what the fuck do you think you’re doing?!” the man screeched, disgruntled. “You’re gonna rip my cape, do you hav-ve any idea how expensiv-ve that shit was? More’n you’ll fuckin’ make in a year an’ then some! Show a little courtesy ‘round your superiors, I ain’t nev-ver seen this sort ‘a disrespect.” Again, he enunciated his ‘w’s twice, and the ‘v’s as well, for some indiscernible and most likely stupid reason.

“Firstly, you are not my superior. This town doesn’t follow Alternian Law, dipshit. Blood colour means nothing here. If your head wasn’t planted firmly up your fishy ass, maybe you could open up a single fucking newspaper and realize that. Secondly, your ‘girlfriend’, who must obviously be nearly as nookbrained as you to even _consider_ dating you, was very clearly not in the mood for company. Again, if you were to solve the aforementioned head/ass conundrum, perhaps you would have noticed. Alas,” Karkat finished with a smirk, “it appears that we are both doomed, for you are destined to spend your life in ignorance, and I am destined to spend the next minute of mine putting up with you.”

The fishy asshole sputtered and recoiled sharply as if he had been dealt a blow to the face. He bared fanged teeth at Karkat and glared daggers.

“Why I nev-ver! You’v-ve made an enemy of me, mister! I sw-wear by all that I hold dear an’ ev-verythin’ else, too, that you’ll rue the day you crossed paths w-with Eridan Ampora!”

With a flourish, he pulled his cape up to his face and turned, stomping off down the hallway and nearly tripping over his feet as he turned the corner and vanished from sight.

 

 

* * *

 

 

With Feferi’s interrogation a bust, Karkat resigned himself to finding the vampire the hard way – searching the town for clues. On his way out of the hospital, he ran into the one person he had hoped to avoid.

Jade’s ears were tucked back under her green cap, and she showed no signs of ever having fought with him the previous night. Her volunteer hospital outfit had been replaced by a light blue shirt-and-skirt combo with a red jacket. Karkat didn’t even bother to wonder why she was at the hospital while off-duty, or skipping class: she was clearly trying to keep an eye on him. If not for the fact that she was intent on seeing him run from town, his secret exposed, he would have found it touching how dedicated she was to stalking him. When he spotted her, her icy glare pierced through him.

“Hey fuckass, what are you doing back here?” she asked.

Karkat regarded her with an unpleasant expression.

“Gee-fucking-whiz, I didn’t know it was a crime to walk through a hospital. My deepest, most astoundingly sincere apologies, Harley.”

He swooped low to the ground in a grandiose, sarcastic bow. When he looked back up he was met with a frown.

“You know what I mean!” Jade said in a harsh tone. “We are near Feferi’s room! Why are you going near her again?!”

“Because I didn’t get a big enough fill the last time, and I figured, hey, why don’t I walk into a crowded hospital in the middle of the day and suck the rest of her blood out? That’s a grade-A prime idea right there, by golly! Folks are going to gather around me in massive fucking droves and praise my goddamned brilliance for that one, I’ll bet.” Karkat snorted, accompanying his spiel with exaggerated movements. “I told you last night, I didn’t bite her. And I was trying to find out who did, before her ass-backwards boyfriend strolled in and ruined everything.”

Jade narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms. “Why should I believe a vampire like you?”

“Go talk to her later, or ask her boyfriend for that matter. His name is Eridan Ampora and, would you fucking believe it, he is actually more annoying than you. Wow, what a champ, huh?

“Fine! But you had better not be lying to me, jerk!” Jade started towards Feferi’s hospital room. Karkat would have been glad to be rid of her, but he still had his own questions for her.

“Hey, bulgestuffer. I’m not done with you yet.”

Jade turned back to face him, the slightest hint of curiosity betraying her otherwise furious expression. “What is it now?”

“The secretary at the front desk. Blonde hair, looks like she got fucking hammered at a bar last night, probable pailmate considering how readily she flirts. Do you know her?”

“Why should you care?”

“Because, when she gave me Feferi’s room number, she said ‘no neck-biting’. Now, I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t expect the average secretary to toss out shit like that to just anyone. She fucking knows.”

Jade paled and stepped backwards. Surprise flitted across her face and she stared blankly at Karkat for a few seconds, as if she had no idea what to say.

“You don’t think…” she finally managed, “…I didn’t, it wasn’t—“

“Oh, really? Because I’m going over my long list of people who know what I am, and – oops! It’s not a long list at all. It’s just you.”

“I’m not lying! I did not tell her anything!” Jade shouted, flailing about angrily.

Triumph glinted in Karkat’s eyes. He had her now, and the little bitch wasn’t going to wriggle out of this one.

“Why,” he said, very slowly and clearly, “should I believe a werewolf like you?”

Jade froze up completely as her face fell and she blushed a bright red. There was a very long, tense pause.

“And there we have it.” he concluded. “You are every bit as untrustworthy as I am, you have as little proof as I do that your claim is the one-hundred-percent genuine without-a-fucking-doubt truth. So instead of bitching at me for just for being a vampire, or because you have some pointless grudge against me for who the fuck knows what reason, why don’t you give it a break until we find out who _really_ attacked Feferi?”

There was another long silence before Jade spoke. Her voice was soft, and only a trace of enmity remained.

“…her name is Lalonde. She invited me to a party next Saturday at her house, there will be a lot of people there. You can go ask her about it then, and she will tell you that I am not lying! And we can try and figure out who attacked Feferi while we are there, too.”

Jade rummaged around in her bag for a moment and pulled out an invitation. She hesitantly handed it to Karkat; he looked it over and saw that it was addressed ‘2 jade, lolz’. The given address was somewhere out in the hills, near the river – the highest-class mansions were all situated there. Jade backed up immediately once he had taken the card, and her glare returned.

“But if you dare try and attack anyone, if you really are lying to me about anything, I am going to rip you to shreds!”

With that, she turned around and marched off down the hallway.

Karkat pocketed the invitation and made his way back out of the hospital. Karkat glanced at the receptionist’s desk as he left – Lalonde was busy with a customer, but she spared the time to wink at him as he passed by.

Ugh. Too much flirty bullshit and too few answers. Saturday couldn’t come soon enough.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karkat attends a party hosted by Roxy in attempt to find out what she knows about the attack on Feferi. Unfortunately for him, Eridan is at the party, and determined to duel him for Feferi's honour...

The week passed agonizingly slowly. Karkat was on edge in every class he attended. Jade was breathing down his neck looking for any signs of suspicious behaviour, and he was looking for suspicious behaviour from everyone else around him. All the schmucks who attended Prospit U. alongside him seemed so normal and boring that he couldn’t for the life of him figure out who could possibly be the vampire. He had been keeping an eye on Feferi’s roommates, since they could have most easily covered up an attack, but the investigation turned up no leads. One of them, a gothic-looking girl with cerulean eyeliner and a spider necklace, had a solid alibi – gaming at the arcade at the time of the attack. The other was an equally gothic but much cheerier girl with a red hoodie. She had no alibi, but Karkat once brushed against her in the hallway and he could clearly smell maroon blood. Blood meant she was alive, and being alive meant that she couldn’t be the vampire.

As the week went on, Karkat also found himself trying to avoid Eridan, who had decided that Karkat was his new ‘riv-val in lov-ve’. Whenever they were anywhere near each other, Eridan would shout a warning about how a duel for Feferi’s heart was swiftly approaching. Karkat tried – and managed – to duck into the shadows every time it looked like he and Eridan might meet each other alone. The last thing he wanted was a fight; if he was wounded, the lack of blood would make his undeath apparent in an instant.

Whenever he stopped at home to rest, he was subject to no end of ribbing from Kanaya. She tried to convince him of both a prospective blackrom with Eridan and his apparent flushcrush on Jade. He spent many a late morning trying and failing to convince her that he felt nothing for the both of them, and wanted them out of his life as soon as possible, if not sooner. She didn’t buy it, spouting bullshit about how “I’ve known you long enough to know when you like someone, Karkat”, as if an insufferable girl with her nose buried in trashy romance novels knew anything about real love. Still, he was used to it, and he easily brushed her suggestions aside.

(But when she brought up a moirallegiance with the drunken receptionist, he finally snapped, and stormed upstairs for sleep after a resounding, “FUCK YOU”.)

 

* * *

 

It was finally Saturday night and a full moon hung low in the sky, a great silver orb obscured by the occasional cloud. Karkat, dressed in his best attire – his brown hoodie – slipped out of the house and headed for the party. He was running a few minutes late, just as planned. He would slip in relatively unnoticed, avoid his dogged pursuers at all costs, get the information he needed, and ghost the joint. Quick, easy, and painless.

The plan collapsed, of course, the second he walked in the door. Throngs of students were milling about, boozed up and dancing to club music, some of them smooching so hard it looked like they were trying to devour each other’s faces, and others roughhousing and tumbling over furniture. The lights were dim and all sorts of rave lights and glowsticks illuminated the house. There were only a few windows, all of which had blinds over them, preventing any moonlight from filtering in. Essentially, the place looked just like a party as seen in a teen TV show right before the kids learn their lesson about throwing parties when their parents weren’t around. Karkat couldn’t help but think that the hostess would be in a lot of trouble if she had parents to supervise her. He tried to push through the crowd to find her and ask her about her enigmatic comments at the hospital, but instead found himself bumping into a familiar purple cape, and before he could duck away, Eridan accosted him.

“I was hopin’ I’d see you here, Vantas.” he said, and he must have been in a good mood because he wasn’t doubling up on any letters. “Are you ready for our duel?”

“Firstly, no. I’m not duelling you. Secondly, fuck you. Thirdly, how did you find out my name? Fourthly, fuck you again.”

“I got my sources,” Eridan muttered. He looked around the crowded house. “Now, I ain’t gonna fight you with so many people around but you just wait, cause when they leave we’re goin’ a do this thing, got it?”

“’This thing’ is not something that is going to fucking happen, so why don’t you just get over yourself – not a small feat for a man whose ego towers over him like Mount Godforsaken Everest – and go run back to your precious purple juice-box of a girlfriend?”

“HOW-W DARE YOU—“ Eridan began, but Karkat melted into the crowd and escaped before he had to deal with any more melodrama.

 

* * *

 

Karkat found the hostess lounging about in an upper hallway of the mansion, outside a bedroom which he assumed was hers. She had a martini in hand, her shirt was hanging down past her shoulders exposing the very edges of a frilly pink bra, and her blonde hair was mussed up and frizzy. She looked far too drunk to be hosting a party and far too drunk to have any sort of meaningful conversation with him. He found himself wishing he could come back on another day, but the longer he waited, the more he risked letting another attack happen. It had to be done tonight.

“Hey, you.”

The girl turned to him and grinned. “Name’s Roxy, an’ don’t you forget it!” she said, stumbling forwards and poking him on the forehead. He flinched and growled.

“Alright, Roxy, I have a bone to pick with you. I’ve got an entire fucking elephant graveyard to pick with you, actually.”

“You gonna at least pick me with _your_ bone?” She gave him a sultry wink and nodded towards his pants.

“No, fuck, that’s not…no!” He reflexively crossed his legs a bit, and stepped back. “I’m here to talk about what happened at the hospital. You told me ‘no biting’ when I asked about Feferi, and I want to know what the fuck that was all about.”

She giggled. “Isn’t it ooooobvious, sweetie? You’re a vampire, she got bit by a vampire, and she has really tasty blood! Soooooo tasty, hella tasty even. So what if you bit her too? You might! And I couldn’t let that happen as the receptionist. Like, O-M-G, it’s not rocket science!”

“How in the hell did you find out? Who told you?”

“About the delicious blood? Well I sure didn’t try it for myself, but—“

“Shut the fuck up about that. I’m talking about me!”

“Oh. Well duh, it was so obvious! Like, come on, living in an old shack way out in the ratty neighborhood, only coming out at night or on cloudy days, having those cute little fangs—“

“They are not cute, they’re adorabloodthirsty.”

“…those adorabubbly whatever you said fangs…really how could someone not figure it out? L-O-L they must be dumb or something.”

Karkat sighed.

“Don’t tell anyone, or I’ll make your life a living hell. Got it?”

“I won’t tell if you kiss me~” she whispered in a singsong voice.

“You don’t have to hit on every guy you meet, Rox.” said a voice from right behind Karkat. He jumped a good foot into the air and spun around, shouting obscenities. How long had Jade Harley been standing behind him with her arms crossed?

“Aww, ok,” Roxy said, cutting across Karkat’s diatribe. “The secret is safe with me, then! Pinky promise and everything!”

She held out a pinky to Jade, who shook it and smiled. Roxy brought her fingers to her lips and mimed a zipping motion, and then turned them to indicate a key locking her mouth up tight. She then dropped the imaginary key in her martini, and took a big sip. Karkat didn’t bother to question the logic.

“You don’t think Karkat is the attacker, then?” Jade asked of her drunken friend.

“L-M-F-A-O, do you really think _that_ guy could go around attacking girls? He is waaay too vanilla. If he did he’d do a much better job, anyways!”

Jade stopped to think, which must have been no easy feat with riotous music still thudding through the house.  Eventually, she sighed, and turned to Karkat with an apologetic expression.

“Ok. I will believe her, and you. I don’t think you’re the one who attacked Feferi anymore!”

“And?” Karkat prompted, raising an eyebrow.

“And…?”

“And what about an apology? Gee, Karkat, I’m sorry I tried to attack you, and threatened to rat you out to the cops for having the misfortune of being a shitty nightwalker, and acting like a complete tool to you every time I saw you!”

Anger sparked back up in her eyes and Jade jabbed him in the chest with a finger.

“I am not apologizing for making the most rational conclusion with the information I had! Maybe if you had not been such a jerk to me I would have believed you sooner!”

Karkat grimaced, not because her words hurt, but because her finger did. She was surprisingly feisty. He had to admit, he appreciated it – though he’d appreciate it more if her anger were aimed at someone other than him.

“Fine. We’re square, ok? You don’t apologize, I don’t either, everything is hunky-fucking-dory. Good?” Jade nodded, and he continued. “So, now what? Are you going to help me find the real attacker?”

“Screw that! Let’s paaartay!” Roxy shouted in his ear. She threw her arms up and started jumping around, only to crash into the banister and topple over, crashing into a hapless partygoer in the foyer below. “I’m okaaay!” she called.

Karkat and Jade facepalmed in unison.

 

* * *

 

Karkat prowled the mansion, looking for signs of a vampire attack. Blood stains on the walls, perhaps, or a girl passed out in the bathroom with a more-than-just-a-hickey on her neck. A hectic party would be the perfect place to pull someone aside and feast without being noticed, and the smell of all the blood pumping through the partygoers’ excited veins was definitely enough to make a weak-willed vampire lose control. Sadly, an hour of investigation yielded no reward. He thought he might have found a lead when he saw a man being pushed out of a bathroom by a panicked girl, but he saw the fluttering, purple cape next, and realized it was just Eridan.

“Real fuckin’ great boyfriend, trying to worm his way into someone else’s pants,” Karkat mumbled to himself. “New species of ignominious leech discovered, named Eridan Ampora after local sleazebag, news at 11…”

Jade, too, was on the hunt for vampires, sniffing around the party, and she too found nothing. Karkat met up with her after the first hour of the search, and he was disappointed by the results.

“I’m beginning to think—“ he began, and he was interrupted by a shout from Roxy.

“Alright boys and girls and everyone else, you better grab your squeezes and squeeze them cause it’s time for a slow dance song! Whooo!”

A suitably sappy song began playing on the stereo and the partygoers started to pair up and dance, swirling around in slow motion. Karkat turned to look at Jade, who looked back at him expectantly, and he shuddered.

“Oh hell no, I am not dancing with you, this is like a scene from a shitty rom-com and I am not in the mood for a re-enactment of…”

“Hey! I kind of like romantic comedies!” Jade said, indignant.

“…my favourite movies.” he finished, surprised.

It was like he was seeing her in an all-new light. It had never occurred to him before that they might share interests – he never thought of her as anything more than that annoying girl who was far too nice to far too many people, and not nice to him at all. She wasn’t really all that bad, though, was she? She was nice almost to a fault, yes, but she was clever, she was strong, she knew how to stand up for herself…maybe he never really hated her, after all. And, somehow, in the dim light of the party with glowsticks waving about all over the place and whatever over-synthesized shit passed as romantic music blaring overhead, she was beautiful. Her buck teeth somehow managed to complement her squishy circle of a face. Her long black hair – god, she needed a haircut – hung loosely from underneath her cap and trailed down her back, ending in tiny, pretty little curls. She bounced up and down on the balls of her feet, always energetic. She was…and he hated to admit how much he liked it…cute.

 _“I told you,”_ whispered Kanaya’s voice in his head.

Fuck off, Kanaya.

He shook the thoughts from his head and extended a hand towards Jade. She took it and stepped closer, and they began to dance. At least, he thought they were dancing – he was no expert on the topic, having never danced with a girl before, but he figured it couldn’t be too difficult. They stepped back and forth, slowly turning on the spot, Jade smiling and his expression neutral. He was surprised at how warm her hands felt in his, and unsure whether it was because of her wolfish blood or because of his lack of blood. As the song wore on she stepped closer, wrapping her arms around him, and he instinctively did the same. His head hung close to her neck and he could smell her pulse, and tell that her heart was beating quickly. How strange it was that she could trust him, a vampire, to be so close to her, especially so soon after fighting him. Maybe it was just in her nature as such a cheerful, forgiving girl.

The song ended and he pulled away, feeling…happy? It was a warm, content feeling. Not quite the same as the triumph he felt when he escaped the blood bank, but strikingly similar. Jade was positively glowing with a beaming smile.

“You’re not half bad a dancer! Maybe we don’t have to fight each other all the time!”

Karkat nodded. “Yeah…yeah, maybe. It’d sure be a big fucking relief not to have to put up with your whining, at least.”

Jade’s eyes narrowed and she looked like she was about to say something, but she was interrupted by a hand at the back of her head. Karkat felt a hand grab him, too, and heard Roxy shout, “Now, kiss!”, and she tried to push them together. Jade ducked down at the last moment and Roxy stumbled forwards, accidentally slapping Karkat across the face. He recoiled and yelled loudly, clutching his now-stinging nose and letting out a slew of expletives.

“Jeez, sorry guys, you don’t have to call me a…what? Fucking nookcase?”

“ _Chafe,”_ Karkat corrected, glaring daggers at her. “I called you a nookchafe. As in, you are constantly chafing my nook with your inebriation.”

Roxy mumbled another apology and stumbled off tipsily, leaving Karkat and Jade with a very awkward silence.

“Um, we’d better get back to looking for the vampire.” Jade finally managed to say. Karkat nodded frenetically, and they split up, both eager to avoid talking about their Near-Kiss Experience.

 

* * *

 

By the time midnight arrived, the party had dwindled down to nearly nothing, and still Karkat saw no suspicious behaviour, or signs of an attack. He waved Jade over to him while the last few partygoers staggered out, Roxy cheerily waving goodbye.

“So, you didn’t see anyone, did you?”

Jade sighed. “No, and I am beginning to think that—“

“Don’t even go there again, I’m not the fucking culprit.”

Jade puffed up her cheeks and crossed her arms. “Did it even go through your thick skull when I said I believed you weren’t the attacker? I wasn’t going to say that! I was going to say that we must be going about things all wrong. What if the vampire isn’t a student?”

“Can’t be. An older vampire wouldn’t be stupid enough to prey on a college girl right in the middle of a public hotspot. That’s like putting a big sign over your head that says, ding ding ding, come arrest me forever for being a huge bloodsucking tool.”

“So it has to be a student who probably wasn’t at the party,” Jade reasoned, “Who isn’t one of Feferi’s roommates, and who doesn’t go out in the day. But that could be a lot of people!”

“It could. So we’d better fuck right off and go looking straightaway.”

Karkat made towards the door, and found his passage blocked by a fishy-smelling douchebag in a purple cape.

“Miiiister V-Vantas,” he began, sounding more like he was Feferi’s evil ex than current boyfriend. “Leav-vin’ so soon, are w-we?”

“Yes.” Karkat announced through gritted teeth. “Yes, I am.”

“W-WRONG!” Eridan bellowed. He unclasped his cape dramatically and threw it aside, where it flopped pathetically onto the floor. He assumed a fighting stance, fists balled up and waving about. “You’re forgettin’ that w-we are supposed a be duelin’ for Fef’s honour and hand in holiest…uh, dating.”

“Fuck off, I don’t want to—HEY!”

Eridan ignored him and leapt forwards, swinging his fist wildly. Karkat deflected the blow and ducked down as Eridan swung again, and he caught his foe in the gut with a punch. Eridan retched and pulled back for only a moment before going in swinging again. An uppercut caught him in the nose and with a sickening crunch his nose was dislocated. He stumbled backwards and fell to the ground. It only vaguely registered to Karkat as Eridan staggered to his feet that his nose was not bleeding, despite the injury.

“W-whadda fuck, I w-wunn’t ready!” Eridan groaned, clutching his fractured nose. He futilely tried to snap it back into place and he was met with no success.

“You weren’t ready?!” Karkat shouted, and if he weren’t so angry he might have laughed. “You attacked me first, fuzzglobes. And if you don’t want me to break the rest of your face, you’ll step off. I don’t want Feferi. I just want you to take a one-way train straight out of my life, and if it were to derail and take a catastrophic plunge off the grand asshole bridge along the way, all the better!”

Eridan coughed so loud he could have been hacking up a lung for all Karkat knew, and when he stopped his expression was murderous. “I’v-ve got anodder plan…” he murmured. He pulled his hands away from his nose and thin strips of white light began to swirl around them, condensing into a powerful glow. Karkat froze up, confused, and realized a second too late that he had to dodge. He tried to jump to the side, but Eridan threw his hands forward and the beam of light caught Karkat in the chest. A painful electric force lifted him up and blasted him backwards. He rolled across the ground and skidded to a halt with a groan. He heard Roxy clapping and whistling, probably too drunk to realize what was going on, and Jade shouted something, and then a blast of heat whizzed past his head, narrowly missing him. His hair singed he quickly rolled out of the way and picked himself up onto his feet, running towards Eridan.

The white strands of light coalesced around Eridan’s hands again but Karkat was ready for him this time. He lunged forwards and caught his opponent in the chest before he could launch his attack. Eridan yelped and toppled backwards, loosing a blast of energy over Karkat’s head. It bore a hole through the wall, exposing the full moon, and a pale shaft of moonlight flooded the room. Roxy shouted but the fighters paid it no mind, Karkat trying desperately to pin Eridan to the ground. He caught a knee to the chest and recoiled, and forced himself to roll away before Eridan could catch him. A fist flashed in front of him and he narrowly dodged it, and then planted his own firmly in Eridan’s face and they toppled over again. Eridan grabbed his hair and pulled hard and Karkat yelled, and scratched his way out of Eridan’s grasp.

“Jade, are you ok?”

Karkat heard Roxy’s voice and a sudden snarl and it hit him: the hole in the wall. _The full moon._ He looked up, panicked, and caught a glimpse of Jade crumpling to the ground, and in his moment of hesitation Eridan’s fist knocked against the side of his head and he nearly blacked out.

His head pounding and vision blurred, he heard Eridan and Roxy shout in unison. He forced himself upright and saw that Eridan was running away, all thoughts of fighting abandoned. Jade advanced on Roxy, fur sprouting from her arms, her cap giving way to her upright ears, her nose lengthening into a snout. She howled in pain as her body transformed into a lupine shape and then she lunged on Roxy and tore at her chest. Blood spurted out, and as the smell reached his nose Karkat felt a sudden tug at his arms and a burst of adrenaline, and without thinking about it he drew a circle in midair – at his call, sanguine strings wrapped themselves around Jade’s neck and tightened and with a mighty heave, the noose of blood pulled Jade away from Roxy and she toppled to the ground. A sudden exhaustion shot through him and he released his grip, the blood splattering the ground. Roxy scrambled away, bleeding from the chest but seemingly alive and alert, and made for the bathroom.

Snarling and clutching at her throat, the beast that had moments ago been Jade advanced on Karkat. He coughed out a single “fuck!” and faced her down, and she charged, slamming him against the wall. His skull screamed in pain and he looked up to see her looming over him. “Jade…no…” he managed to murmur, and her expression seemed to soften for a moment. She pulled away and howled again, and then broke through a window and charged off into the forest. Karkat tried to follow her, but with a headache searing at him, he collapsed to the ground, and everything went black.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karkat awakens, covered in blood, his head pounding. He doesn't know what happened after he blacked out the night previous, but he does know who Feferi's vampire attacker must be: Eridan Ampora.

Karkat awoke in an unfamiliar bed with the sheets pulled up over his face, and a throbbing headache. He groaned and fought his way into a sitting position. The pain forced him to squint and he tried to look around, but nothing registered. He rolled out of bed and hit the floor with another groan, and after much work, hoisted himself to his feet. The hazy smell of dried blood lingered in the air – he sniffed his hand and it, too, was bloodied, though he could not for the life of him remember why. The floor seemed sticky, the carpet a gruesome red-brown hue.

“Urrgh…the fuck happened last night?” he asked of no-one in particular, and no-one answered him.

He stumbled his way into the hallway and noticed a discarded glowstick leaking onto the carpet. He could remember music, and dancing…there was a party. Yes, that’s right, he was at a party last night, one hosted by Roxy, and so he must be in the Lalonde mansion. He followed the hallway towards what he thought must be the foyer, and surely enough it led him to the second-floor railing that overlooked the entrance and living room. That would mean that the kitchen would be nearby – maybe a drink of water would ease his headache.

He made his way down the stairs, feeling oddly feverish and weak, and nearly collapsed at the bottom. His skin felt like it was burning. Lightheadedly groping at furniture he dragged himself to the kitchen, and after flailing his arms about along the countertop, managed to locate the sink. Without bothering for a glass he turned the tap and hung his head beneath it, guzzling water and splashing his face. Once his thirst was quenched and his face thoroughly soaked, he pulled away feeling slightly more alert. He took a dishcloth and wiped his face dry, he rubbed his eyes until they were no longer blurry, and then took a good look around the room.

It was as though a tornado had ripped through the house overnight, and hadn’t had the decency to at _least_ take them to Oz while it destroyed the place. There was a wizard statue upended and lying on the ground with a broken hand. It was probably smashed by drunken vandals during last night’s revels. Streamers, glowsticks, party hats, and balloons littered the floor, as did empty glasses and beer bottles. One of the couches looked like it had seen much better days, stained with some liquid that Karkat dare not try to identify. Potted plants were uprooted and lay on the floor, gasping for water and soil. There was a massive hole in the wall, with sunlight streaming out into the room.

Karkat stared at the wall, perplexed, and a blur of sounds and feelings hit him…a fight had broken out, yes, and Eridan had caused the hole in the wall, and the moonlight…the full moon, and he panicked, and there was growling and Jade had transformed and smashed through a window, and…

_What happened to Jade?_

Panicked, he ran to the window. There were gory splatters of blood all around it, and a thick sanguine trail led into the house, and up the stairs. It was dotted with paw prints. He rushed upstairs, the sunlight searing his back and making him dizzy again, and traced the trail of blood back to the room in which he had awoken. He quickly threw open the door, fearing the worst.

The walls were painted with dried blood, the dark maroon colour staining the floor, and the bedspread. Jade lay in the corner, naked and gory, unmoving. Oh god, oh man, oh god, she couldn’t be dead, please don’t let her be dead...he checked her pulse and was relieved to feel the blood thumping through her veins. She was merely asleep. Karkat began to wonder, then, what had caused the mess, but he soon found his answer as he turned and noticed what used to be a deer lying in another corner of the room. Apparently, Jade had run out into the forest, mauled an animal, brought it back to Roxy’s house, and fallen asleep.

All in all, things could have been worse, he supposed.

Karkat heard footsteps behind him, and a moment later Roxy strolled into the room, clad only in her underwear. She was holding an icepack to her head and sipping on a glass of water. Her chest was bandaged up where Jade had bitten her, but she seemed no worse for the wear. She looked around the room, incredulous.

“Ohhh man, what did you two _do_ last night?”

“I didn’t do _anything_ , I was out cold for the entirety of the night, while the fanged fuck over there decided it was apparently a capital idea to go out and rip this deer a new asshole!”

Jade stirred at the shouting, rubbing her eyes and blinking, looking around the room. She first noticed Karkat and frowned slightly, and as her vision trailed towards Roxy’s wound, and then the deer carcass, her eyes widened and a look of horror spread across her face. She looked down at her blood-stained hands and shrieked, before quickly standing up and running towards Roxy.

“Are you ok? Oh my god, oh my god, I didn’t mean to…oh god, you’re hurt, I…I…”

Her voice gave way to tears and Roxy quickly wrapped her arms around Jade, holding her close and patting her butt.

“It’s ok, it’s ok, we _all_ got a little too drunk last night and—“

“No…no, I wasn’t drunk, I was stupid, I forgot it was the full moon and I never should have come and oh god did I hurt anyone else?”

She buried her face into Roxy’s chest and continued sobbing.

“Look, Harley, calm your washboard tits and get over yourself. Shit happened and you couldn’t stop it, whoop-de-fuckin’-doo. Don’t dwell on that. Just focus on the shit you still have to MAKE happen - we have a vampire to catch.”

Jade gave him an odd look. It appeared as though she could not decide whether to cry more or glare at him. Eventually her sobs gave way to sniffles and she wiped the tears from her eyes, steeling her expression.

“R-right! It’s Eridan, isn’t it?”

Karkat nodded. “I didn’t see a speck of blood on him for our entire fight, and I know I pack enough of a punch to have my enemies spilling sanguine. And, of course, no ordinary troll could fire off big-ass beams of light like he did last night. The moronic fucker pegged himself as a monster right then and there.”

“A monster…” Jade repeated to herself softly, furrowing her brows. Karkat ignored her and pressed onwards.

“Ok, Roxy, I’m sure you’re tired of dealing with all of this supernatural bullshit, especially with a gigantic fuckin’ cut in your stomach.”

“Not really.” Roxy shrugged and smiled lightly. “It’s fun.”

“Fun? You think this shit is fun?”

“It beats living alone. My parents kicked the bucket a while ago.”

Karkat opened and closed his mouth several times in succession, each time failing to decide whether to ask if she had meant to make a double entendre there or to apologize profusely. He eventually settled on a “Damn, that really sucks.” Roxy nodded solemnly.

“Ok, well, uh, moving on…we need to know where Eridan lives so we can go kick his slimy ass. Can you help?”

Roxy nodded again, this time smiling. “I am pretty much the leetest hacker, it’s me, so I’ll have his address for you in no time!”

She led Karkat and the still-shaken Jade out of the guest room, to a door near the end of the hallway. A sign on the door read:

ROXYS ROOM, KEEP OUT

UNLESS U WANNA GET FRISKY ;)

Roxy took a key from her pocket and, after some fumbling, slid into the doorknob and turned the lock.

“Your bedroom door needs a key? Why the fuck…” Karkat began, but as he entered the room, the reason for the lock became quite obvious. The room was completely dark, with no natural windows, but it was filled with odd window-like screens. The devices were unplugged and stacked everywhere he looked – atop the bed, underneath her desk, propped against the wall, and even lying haphazardly on the floor. Some of the mechanical windows were broken, and labelled with pink marker: “OBSERVATORY”, “LAB”, and “STRIDER’S HOUSE” were just a few of the designations. There was barely enough space to move around, and Roxy nearly crashed headfirst into one of the windows as she manoeuvered over to her laptop.

“Whoaa…” Jade murmured, her jaw dropping slightly. “You have so many! Do you study dark fenestrology?”

“Dark fuck-a-what?” Karkat asked, and he was met with giggles from both girls.

“Dark fenestrology!” Jade repeated slowly for Karkat’s benefit. “The study of fenestrated planes – windows that are connected through space-time when provided with enough power.”

“I have no idea what that means. And why in the hell is this room filled with them? Are you running some sort of illicit window smuggling ring, Rox? Were these poor windows taken from their homes in modern art installations and avant garde apartments which were assuredly birthed from drug-addled minds? Dare you deprive the hipsters of their bullshit statements about the nature of ‘windows’ in today’s society? For shame, Lalonde. For shame.”

Roxy laughed loudly and obnoxiously at the joke, but once she was able to calm herself down, she regarded him with a serious look.

“These windows are something I actually give some shits about, ok? They are really interesting, and really useful, and my house is usually filled with them. I stored them all in here for my kickass party ‘cause drunk people and windows don’t mix nearly as well as my drinks do.”

“Ok, and what do they do?”

“Watch and learn, sweetie.”

She grunted and leaned over the window labelled “OBSERVATORY”, managing just barely to reach the plug and insert it into a wall socket. She leaned the window against the stack in front of her and turned it on, and a bright light filled the room. Karkat instinctively stepped out of the range of the light. Although it should have, by all means, been artificial, it looked and felt like sunlight to him. The screen was broken, but through the hole Karkat could see, true to the label, an observatory. It was filled with pumpkins and illuminated by the harsh glare of the sun. Roxy stepped through the hole in the window and, somehow, appeared in the observatory on the other side.

“Wh—you…how?!” Karkat spluttered. She grinned deviously and climbed back through the hole, emerging in the room once again.

“It’s like magic, huh? But it’s science! The window is a portal to another window – in this case, a portal to my observatory. I use them to travel around my house, and sometimes to other houses with windows installed in them. They can even go to other worlds, but it drains a fuck lot of energy so I don’t usually do that.”

“It’s sooo cool!” Jade whispered, breathily. In her excitement, she seemed to have forgotten her earlier melancholy. “Isn’t it cool?”

“Yeah, sure. It’s a real hoot.” Karkat said. “Now, can we get back on track? I need that slimy grubspawn’s address so I can go and kick the shit out of him.”

“Don’t get your panties in a bunch, I’m totally gonna hack that shit up right now!”

For Roxy, “hacking” turned out to be the judicious use of the university’s student information bank and Google Maps. She was able to pinpoint Eridan’s house to a mansion.  “Of course he lives in a fuckin’ mansion, vampires are melodramatic shitheads”, Karkat groaned. Jade helpfully pointed out that Karkat had just admitted to being a melodramatic shithead himself, and he grumbled for a while before conceding that she may have a point. Roxy printed out a map leading directly to the mansion, and while Karkat thought that the map was overkill as the house was literally within view of Roxy’s, he pocketed it anyways, just in case.

 “Well, thanks, I guess,” he said to Roxy, after the map was safely tucked away. “You weren’t as shitty a host as I thought you’d be.”

She smiled and forced a hug onto him and he almost reconsidered.

“Fuck off!” he groaned, pushing her off of him. “I’m not bulge-bumpingly thankful, just…normal thankful. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go take care of Eridan right away. He’s going to be on edge after last night, and he might even flee the town. That’d be hunky-fucking-dory for us but it sure as hell won’t help anyone else. Who knows who he might attack next?” Karkat left the room and he was halfway to the entrance when he remembered that it was broad daylight outside.

“Stay for a drink?” Roxy asked, grinning from ear to ear.

“Fuck you.” he replied, and it was the closest to an assent he was willing to give her.

  


* * *

  


The next few hours passed uneventfully. First, Karkat and Jade scoured the house, cleaning up all of the blood leftover from Jade’s wolfish rampage. That done, Karkat spent most of the day lounging about, alternating between making small talk and being annoyed by the two ladies. He guzzled a few glasses of liquor but they did next to nothing; it was very difficult to become intoxicated without any blood flowing through his body.

The sun was hanging low in the sky, and Karkat was sitting on the guest bed practicing his “brooding face”, when Jade came to announce that she was leaving.

“Whoa, whoa, hold the fuck up.” he said, before she could duck out of the room. “You were beyond determined to catch the vampire when it was me, and now that we know that it’s Eridan, you’re just going to bow out? What the hell, Harley?”

Jade averted her eyes and shrunk back.

“The moon is still too close to the full part of the cycle. If I go out again tonight I’ll transform again, and then I might hurt someone!”

Karkat stood up and scowled. “Yes, someone like Eridan. Hurting _him_ might be nice.”

“I can’t risk it! If I got loose, I could end up attacking someone else! What if it isn’t just a deer this time? What if I kill someone?”

“Don’t werewolves retain at least some level of control over their actions when they transform? Can’t you bitch-slap your wolf instincts into shape?”

“I…” Jade crossed her arms and continued her retreat, looking confused and worried.

“You’re scared, aren’t you?”

“…yes.”

“Then cut that shit right the fuck out. You’re not supposed to _be_ scared, Harley, you’re supposed to be _scary_. Where did all your nerve go? You lose control once and you start yapping at your own shadow? How much more piteous can you get, how much cowardice are you going to manage to squeeze into that little stump of a body?”

Jade balled her hands up into fists and trembled. For a moment it seemed as though she was going to launch herself at him, just as she had done back in the hospital only a few weeks ago. Instead, a tear rolled down her cheek and she started to sniffle again.

“Ugh, Jade, I didn’t mean to—“, Karkat began, stepping towards her and moving to put a hand on her shoulder. Her sobs turned to snarls the moment he touched her and she reared a hand back, and before he could duck out of the way…

_WHOP!!!_

Stars exploded in his vision and he toppled backwards, blinking through a sudden burst of pain. A flurry of expletives dripped from his wounded mouth, and he gasped for breath.

“For fuck’s sake, Harley, that was supposed to be the start of a motivational speech, not a…” He looked up and she was gone. “Jade? Jade, get your ass back here!”

Groaning, he made his way out into the hallway. His target was nowhere in sight, but the sound of the front door slamming was enough to indicate her escape route. The glare of the setting sun caught him directly in the chest when he tried to pursue her, and he was forced to let her go. Roxy wandered into the foyer with a bemused look on her face, and turned to him.

“So, dj’you two break up or something?”

  


* * *

  


Hours later, cloaked in the dark of night and with the moon hanging overhead, Karkat made his way towards Eridan’s mansion. The shadows swirled around him and gave him safe passage. Ducking away from the occasional streetlight or patio lamp and skulking around the edge of the forest, he was able to reach his destination without being spotted by a soul. The property was ringed by a wall that Karkat estimated to be about ten feet tall, and the only entrance was a heavily illuminated gateway. The only entrance for mortals, that is. Karkat fused with the darkness near the wall, letting his body blend with the night’s ethereal embrace. Together they slipped through a crack in the wall and emerged on the other side. He panted for breath and took a moment to steady himself, and then pressed onwards.

Once past the gate, he still had quite the walk ahead of him. The mansion was situated at the top of a hill, presumably to make it look as imposing as possible. Karkat crept along the inside of the wall, staying far away from any sources of light, and made his way to the back entrance of the mansion. As he approached, he heard the sound of music – someone inside was playing some sort of organ. Eridan Ampora, master organist...go figure.

Behind the mansion there was the usual decadent patio and sparkling swimming pool. Karkat tested the patio door and found it locked, but surprisingly, the nearest window was not. He climbed in through the window and found himself in the kitchen. From there, he moved to the main foyer. The organ was still playing, and it was somewhere above him, so he ascended the staircase.

The sound of the organ came from a large room on the second floor of the house. The room had a high ceiling and it seemed to have been built solely to house the organ, with the added bonus of looking dramatic. A gigantic glass window stretched across an equally large, half-circle alcove on the far side of the room. Moonlight spilled through the glass along with streetlights, giving the room an odd tint that was half-blue and half-orange. Just as Karkat had predicted, given Eridan’s wannabe-hipster nature, there were a few fenestrated planes attached to the wall on the right of the room. Most of them were plugged in and displaying images of gothic castles.

Eridan himself sat on the left side of the room, along with an organ that looked as though it had been stolen from a cathedral and shrunk to fit in his house. He turned his head slightly when he noticed Karkat enter, but did not move. He had a new cape slung around him, which had jagged, triangular edges at the bottom, and a bright magenta Aquarius symbol painted on the back. The song he was playing on the organ reached a menacing peak, and he slammed his hands down, flooding the room with cacophonous sound.

“W-welcome to my mansion, Mister V-Vantas. I knew-w it w-was only a matter ‘a time before you show-wed up, since you got some sort ‘a crazy v-vampire killin’ dream. W-what are you doin’, hatin’ your ow-wn kind like that?”

“I don’t hate my own kind, you ignorant douchenozzle. I hate _you._ ”

Eridan scowled and stood up, crossing his arms. “W-whatev-ver, like I giv-ve half a crap w-what you gotta say anyw-ways. Point is, I knew-w you’d come here sooner or later.”

He turned on the spot and threw his arms out wide, flourishing his cape. He looked more like a lame gothy supervillain than a vampire, but he was clearly more menacing than he had been in previous encounters.

“AN’ NOW-W, OUR GLORIOUS FINAL DUEL CAN BEGIN!”

Karkat scoffed, and Eridan deflated the moment he realized that Karkat was not going to respond in kind.  “Cut the melodramatic crap, Eridan, this isn’t a duel. I’m here to run you out of town, or kill you. I’m not fussy about which one you force me to do.”

“Ha! Run me outta tow-wn? Kill me? Like you ev-ven could do any ‘a that!” Eridan retorted, pacing around Karkat in a circular formation. “An’ w-what kind ‘a good reason w-would you hav-ve fer doin’ it, anyw-way?”

“You attacked and nearly killed your own girlfriend, you sick bag of bulges! And if you keep that shit up, the authorities are bound to notice. A vampire hunt puts us both in danger, and I am not going to lay down and let you spark one. You need to learn not to be a complete fucking moron, and – oh, lucky lucky me – I get to be the one to teach you that lesson.”

“You don’t know-w nothin’!” Eridan’s face contorted into an ugly scowl and he clenched his fist. “Nothin’ about me an’ her, nothin’ about w-what I’m doin’ or w-what I did! So just get fuckin’ gone, or come fuckin’ fight me already! I ain’t gonna bother talkin’ w-with an asshole like you.”

“As you wish,” Karkat said, and he lunged forwards. His fist swung towards Eridan but the blow was knocked away immediately, and Eridan counted with a swing of his own. It too, was blocked, and they traded several more futile blows before one of Eridan’s hits finally connected. Karkat reeled backwards and dodged out of the way of a follow-up strike, and Eridan responded by retreating. Shimmering white light began to coalesce around his hands again, just as he had done the previous night, and Karkat knew this time to jump away from the blast immediately. When Eridan loosed the beam of light it left a smoking, charred trail on the ground, and Karkat was glad not to have taken a direct hit.

“Most ‘a you v-vampires think you’re hot shit, skulkin’ around in the shadow-ws like little pussies. I got somethin’ better on you…I got the pow-wer ‘a the light itself!”

The energy continued to pulse and swirl around Eridan and he discharged it in quick bursts, almost like a machine gun. Karkat, loathe as he was to remain on the defensive, was forced to run in circles around the room, ducking and dodging away from every blast. Eventually finding an opening, Karkat propelled himself towards Eridan. Keeping low to the ground he shifted his focus to the shadows that swirled around the dark room, and let his body sink into the nocturnal embrace. Eridan paused and looked around to find his foe, and Karkat took the opportunity to spring upwards, his fist connecting to Eridan’s chin with a powerful uppercut.

Eridan was launched right off the ground and he crumpled in a heap at Karkat’s feet. Karkat, no stranger to fighting dirty, aimed a kick at Eridan’s stomach while he was down. The fishblood gasped and clutched at his stomach, spluttering obscenities between ragged breaths. Karkat stooped down to put a hand around his foe’s throat, and he tightened his grip immediately.

“If I were you, I’d raise my white flag right the fuck up.” Karkat growled.

“Nev-ver…” Eridan choked out, and in a sudden flash of light, the entire world seemed to explode around him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jade comes home to some rather distressing news, and realizes she has no choice but to return to town and rescue Karkat, even if it means transforming into a werewolf again.

For most of the year, Jade Harley lived alone in a small dorm room on the Prospit U campus. It was the most convenient housing option available, as her family home was situated far from the city centre. Every corner of Skaia was ringed by one forest or another and her family lived in the Frost Woods, just off the south highway, twenty minutes or so from the University. She visited them for a few days each month when the full moon was high, to keep herself away from innocent people when she transformed. Each month, that was, except for this one, because in a moment of rampant idiocy she had forgotten about the moon in the midst of her vampire hunt.

She would not be making that mistake again. The moment she left Roxy’s mansion, with the sun sinking beneath the horizon and the sickeningly pale moon threatening to rise, she boarded a bus headed home, and resolved to stay there until the moon faded and her transformations stopped for the month. Nothing, absolutely nothing could persuade her to leave…except, perhaps, for guilt.

Ugh…a pit formed in her stomach every time she so much as thought about her transformations. It was a feeling she was loathe to confront though she knew some day she would have to do it. Fear for the lives of her friends and family, for the lives of innocents, for the chance she would be caught and killed…it all swirled around in a little unpleasant ball somewhere deep in her gut. Why couldn’t she force herself to control her bestial form? Why was she, Jade Harley, master marksman and grade-A student and headstrong self-sufficient woman so _afraid_ of herself? Why did her confidence fail her every time the moon was high? Karkat was right, she _was_ pathetic.

It was with these thoughts drifting heavy in her head that she sulked through the front entrance of her family’s modest, cabin-like home. The foyer greeted her, as always, with a plethora of animal and monster heads stuffed and mounted by her grandfather. She caught the pervasive scent of wood mixed with batter and guessed that her nanna was busy baking in the kitchen. She kicked her shoes off and dropped her bag on the ground, and meandered into the living room.

The room was simple, evoking an image of ancient days past, when technology and travel were foreign, expensive concepts. It screamed ‘old people’, from the wooden sofa frame in the middle of the room to the rocking chair on the side, the paintings and vases lining walls and shelves, and the dainty cloth spread across their coffee table. The only hints of the present day here were in the television that hung from the wall across from the sofa, the radio that sat on an end table beside it, and her brother, decked in casual, modern clothes, and sitting on the couch.

“Jade! Welcome home!”

John greeted her with a smile…almost the same beaming smile she normally wore. His face was practically hers – his eyes were blue, rather than green, and his skin was somewhat darker, but aside from the minor differences he was her twin in every way. His mood, too, seemed matched to hers, because beneath his smile there was a trace of worry. He was holding a wrinkled-up magazine. It looked as though he had been studying it before she arrived.

“How…uh, how was the party?”

Jade winced as she stepped forwards, joining him on the opposite end of the sofa. Talking about it wasn’t high on her list of priorities. In fact, it wasn’t on the list at all.

 “Um…good. Why do you ask?”

 “Because…well, uh, you might want to take a look at this.” John said, sliding her the magazine across the coffee table. “It’s just a dumb tabloid, but after that fish girl got attacked I think the cops are going to take it seriously.”

Jade looked at the front cover and nearly dropped it in shock, that too-familiar pit in her stomach returning with a vengeance. There was a picture of a wolfish creature in tattered clothing that could only have been herself, running through the forest near Roxy’s house. It was accompanied by a headline that, in better times, might have made her laugh:

 

** FAMOUS AUTHOR’S ORPHANED DAUGHTER LIVING ON TOWN OUTSKIRTS AND DATING A FEROCIOUS WOLF GIRL **

Just who is this terrifying beast, roaming our city?

Would R. Lalonde be appalled…or proud of her daughter for carrying on her secret supernatural legacy?

Does this tie in to the brutal mauling of the Alternian Empress-to-be?

Can powdered werewolf claws really be used as an aphrodisiac?

READ ALL ABOUT IT ON PAGES 7, 8, and 12!!!

 

Circumstances as they were, Jade only managed a weak ‘Oh, no’ and a shudder. Her stomach felt like it had been ripped open and replaced with a gaping hole. Did anyone recognize her in the picture? Was someone coming to get her, right now?

“I don’t know what you were up to last night, Jade,” John said, frowning, “but this can’t be good. We might need to lay low for a while.”

The hole in her stomach started to burn. “I…yeah…” She managed, leaning back and throwing the tabloid onto the table. She tried to hold back her tears and managed it, but it was very obvious that she was on the verge of breaking down.

“Look, Jade, this kind of stuff happens sometimes.” John consoled. “And, well, you’ve never even tried to control the transformations, so I’m really not surprised. It was only a matter of time before you got caught, but hey, I don’t think anyone is going to recognize you.”

Jade nodded half-heartedly. “I’m scared,” she said, eventually. “I didn’t want to hurt anyone, I was scared of who I was…and now look what I’ve done…”

“You’ve just got to learn how to control it. It’s really not that hard, I’ve had a handle on myself for the past year, and Grandpa and Nanna for way longer than that.”

“But what if I can’t? What if something goes wrong?” Jade pressed him urgently, though she felt like she was really asking herself, and not him. Why wouldn’t she look this issue head-on? She had no problem confronting anything else – snarky teachers, moody vampires, tough assignments…why was this any different?

“Well, then you have to live with that. But if you can focus hard – really really hard on something to keep you from letting go, then it’s easy to handle it.“

Jade mulled it over. It was nothing she hadn’t heard before, but it was something she had always managed to ignore.

“Look, Jade, maybe you should just—“

**_Brrr-iiing! Brr-iiing!_ **

The family phone interrupted John and he rushed over it to pick it up. After a ‘hello’ and a few seconds of silence, he motioned for Jade to take it from him. “It’s for you.”

Jade took the phone and had barely said her own ‘hello’ before she was besieged by a rush of words. The voice on the other side of the line was Roxy’s and she sounded like she was panicking. There was running water in the background and she was whispering just loud enough to be heard.

“Jade! Jadey, Jade, Jade, there’s trouble, lots of it… Your hunk of a vamp boyfriend left just in time I think, ‘cause the police just showed up! They’re asking about werewolves and a blood bank robbery and illicit parties and I’m tryin’ to stall for time but they’re snooping all around the place and they know something’s up. I got away for a moment by pretending I was gonna hurl – you know, drinks an’ all that – and now I’m warning you – get the fuck out of dodge, ASAP! I don’t even know what’s going on with the guys, neither of them is answering their phone…prolly fighting or some shit, but what if they kick up a lot of ruckus? The cops will be on them like me on cheap booze! I can’t keep the popo occupied forever, so it’s GTFO time for you! Out of city, out of country, wherever the hell you got to go to get away! And don’t worry ‘bout me, ok?”

There was the sound of a knock on the door and Roxy’s phone clicked off. Without thinking, Jade dropped her own phone and made for the front door, haphazardly throwing her shoes back on and pushing it open. She left the house with John trailing behind her, calling for her to wait up.

“What happened, Jade? What’s wrong?”

“You were right.” she said, trembling. “The cops are taking the tabloid seriously, they’ve already gone to talk to my friend Roxy and they could go after Karkat next, if they find anything out, and he doesn’t know, and…oh god, I have to go get him!”

The moon shone in the horizon, barely visible from below the line of trees. It was only a matter of minutes before the rays reached her. Jade knew she would be lost to her bestial transformation, and soon. But what choice did she have? She couldn’t abandon Karkat…she should never have left him in the first place.

“Jade, come back!” John huffed for breath and caught up to her at the edge of the woods. “You can’t go after him, weren’t you just making a big deal about not going out as a werewolf?”

“But I have to! The bus won’t come back soon enough, and I have to get there as soon as possible, or else it could be too late! And even if I rode the bus, the moon would rise while I was on it, and then…then I wouldn’t be able to handle it at all!” Desperation made itself apparent, tears threatening to return yet again – how many times, now, had she cried? How many times this week, just because of vampires and werewolves and all sorts of monstrous things that belonged in storybooks and not in her life?

She’d had enough of it.

“I’m leaving, and that’s final! You have to get Nanna and Grandpa, get them out of here, before someone shows up looking for you, too! I’ll meet you...I don’t know where, but I’ll find you, okay? Keep your cell phone on you!”

“Jade…” John began, but she was already off, crashing through the forest. Her feet – so used to trampling through the brush as paws, so unused to doing it in shoes – tripped over themselves as she stumbled her way through the woods. The highway remained just in sight between the tangles of trees, the sight of it enough to keep her on track. Moonlight twinkled through the branches and she could feel something boiling beneath her skin, her heart pounding with the desire to run, to kill, to rip and tear flesh apart, howl at the moon and smell the dirt and nature around her, _give herself up to the wild, and run, and kill, and devour, and_

Karkat.

He was still in danger. He still needed her help. There was no time to kill – eviscerate, tear, destroy, fangs sinking into flesh and ripping the sweet meat away from bone – no, there was no time, she could only run – run and howl and – no! Run to Eridan’s mansion, run to save Karkat…

Fur sprouted from her every pore, claws from fingernails and fangs from teeth. Delicious scents filtered in through her canine nose, her cap fell to the ground as fuzzy ears surged forth proudly, her clothes ripped and her tail was set loose. Her paws pounded on the dirt, easily traversing the terrain, carrying her through the woods. She could smell everything, from the smallest leave to the largest deer, the most wonderful scent – oh what she would give to kill it, rip it apart, devour it – but still, no, she could not, she must not…

She stomped through the woods at a harried pace, stopping for no deer, no animal, no scent or taste or sensation. She followed the highway under moonlight, darkly, keeping away from any trace of civilization. She kept moving, minute after agonizing minute passing by, until she finally found herself at the edge of the town. Even then she skirted around it, intent on staying out of sight until absolutely necessary. She smelled people walking around, the usual night-time hustle and bustle…late dinners cooking in houses outside the treeline, children playing around, some with cuts and bruises that felt like feasts to her nose…and yet she pressed on, because she had to find Karkat, had to get him away from Eridan and the police and anything else that could hurt him, because if not for her he wouldn’t be in danger in the first place…

She had almost reached Roxy’s mansion when it happened. Even from within the woods, with the sky obscured by trees, Jade heard the explosion. A great, shuddering blast, a burst of light that lit up the sky for miles, and then silence.

Silence punctuated by the sound of sirens, echoing into the night.

 

* * *

 

Karkat Vantas was no stranger to blinding headaches and searing pain; they were like an annoying friend who wouldn’t leave him alone no matter how many times he begged for a week apart. Through his coughs and hacks he expected blood to bubble up his throat at any moment, forgetting as he so often did that his veins were empty of the stuff. It vaguely occurred to him that his clothes were on fire but he didn’t care to put them out, or do anything, really, other than lie on the floor wondering where the fuck everything went so terribly wrong. The ringing in his ears slowly faded into the sound of cackling laughter, and the burning sensation was momentarily interrupted by a hand at his collar, pulling him upwards.

“W-weren’t expectin’ that, now-w w-were ya’?”

Eridan was stronger than he looked, his muscles no doubt strengthened by his vampiric powers. Karkat found himself hurtling across the room and skidding across the ground. The fires were snuffed by the motion, but it did nothing to ease the pain of his burned skin. He thanked whatever vengeful gods looked down on him that he had the fortitude – and undeath – required to survive Eridan’s attack. But that would do nothing for him if he couldn’t stop the next ones, and he surely couldn’t. He could barely find the strength to lift a finger.

Even his beloved “fuck you” was reduced to barely a whisper. How pathetic.

“Bet you’re thinkin’ tw-wice about tryin’ to pick a fight w-with me, huh? Tryin’ to w-white knight your w-way into the heart of a girl you barely ev-ven knew-w? You shoulda left it w-well enough alone.”

Karkat forced more words from his burning maw, channeling his pain and hatred into energy. “I…wasn’t fuckin’ white knighting…just trying to keep myself from getting found out, ‘cause of an asshole like you…”

Eridan’s laughter seared Karkat’s hearing ducts worse than the blast of light did. “Get found out? W-what are you, nuts? Nobody w-was thinkin’ nothin’ about v-vampires before you tried to be the big damned hero an’ put me aw-way. Nobody in the city gav-ve half a damn, they thought it w-was just some crazy guy stalkin’ around cuttin’ people’s necks!”

“…and if you attacked someone else?”

“I w-wasn’t gonna! Fef is mine and mine alone an’ I don’t need a feed on anyone else. Couple times a w-week from her’s all I need.” Eridan smirked and ran a hand through his hair, as if to make himself look more like the Casanova he liked to pretend to be.

“Hang on a fucking second here...she knew?”

“A course she did, you fuckin’ moron. W-what did you think, that w-was a one off ev-vent? I told you, I had that shit under control. I _told_ you, I w-wasn’t gonna let it happen again.”

Karkat grimaced and staggered to his feet, finding no resistance from Eridan. Maybe his foe was too busy acting the part of villain to just finish him off. “Well isn’t that just a fucking hoot? Mister-motherfucking-perfect-boyfriend Ampora lost control of himself during a feeding and tore his girlfriend’s neck apart! And now he thinks that he has everything right the fuck under control, because clearly he doesn’t have any chance of re-offending! Oh, no sir, everything is just motherfucking bulge-chomping peachy around here!”

Eridan frowned. “…I didn’t fuckin’ lose control. I tripped.”

“ _…what._ ”

Karkat could feel his own jaw threatening to drop right out of his head and walk away. His mind shut down and began working on a strike notice. For the briefest moment he could have even sworn he felt his heart start beating again out of shock.

“I w-was about to bite dow-wn an’ I stumbled an’ w-we fell over, an’ I tore a big chunk outta her neck w-while w-we w-was thrashin’ around tryin’ to get up.”

Karkat didn’t want to believe it. He wanted to dismiss it as a mind-numbingly stupid excuse thought up at the last second by a terrible wannabe actor. He wanted to will his broken body to walk forwards and plant a fist right in Eridan’s snivelly little face, and then plant another one, and another, another, another, until Eridan toppled over and stopped being a thing that existed.

He wanted to do all of that, but sadly, Eridan was _just_ pathetic enough that he believed the story.

“…and then you ran away like the fucking coward you are.”

Eridan shook his head indignantly. “No, an’ then she _told_ me to run aw-way. Didn’t w-want me gettin’ in trouble for it, so she said she’d fake bein’ attacked by some unknow-wn guy.”

“That is the biggest pile of horseshit I’ve ever been fed.” Karkat began, and suspecting that Eridan was about to launch into a rant that would boil down to _just ask Feferi_ , (just as so many of the other recent mysteries seemed to boil down to just asking one person or another about something) he added: “But I believe it.”

And that was about when Jade Harley howled and slammed into Eridan, knocking him against the wall and sending a picture frame crashing to the floor. In lupine form she snapped and bit at his neck and he was barely able to hold her off, trying to shove her aside to no avail. A blast of light shot from his hands and she flew backwards, crashing into the ground with a whine, but she soon bolted towards him again. Her claws extended, she slashed at his face and he howled in pain, stumbling backwards with two long marks across his face. Karkat rushed over and tried to pull Jade away, and she snarled at him.

“Jesus’ fucking sphincter, hang the fuck on a second here!”

Jade turned and advanced on him, a menacing glint in her eyes, but as he stared her down she softened up. Her fierce expression morphed to one of curiosity. She leaned in and sniffed at his burning skin, and then managed to speak.

“I thought Eridan was attacking you! I saw the explosion from a mile away! And just look at you, you are all burned up!”

“…you’re talking. You’re sane…what the fuck happened?”

Jade looked aside, seeming embarrassed. Perhaps, underneath her fur, she was blushing. “I was worried about you! So…I guess that was enough to keep my wits?”

“Ugh, that toes the line between ‘flattering’ and ‘anime love confession’, so let’s not dwell on it. Just…let’s get out of here, okay? Eridan isn’t a threat anymore, the long story short is that he’s a fucking moron who needs to learn to keep his balance when he goes for a fangful.”

Jade frowned, and her embarrassment gave way to worry. She glanced over his shoulder, and then back at him. “Karkat, it’s not that simple.”

“Oh, yeah? Why not? Do you need proof here, too? Maybe I’ve just fallen victim to his amazing vampire charm, right?”

“No! It’s because you are still in danger! Roxy called me back and I came as fast as I could!”

“And where exactly are your two shits about danger? You didn’t seem to give them before! You cold-footed me earlier, walking out when I needed you, so where in hell’s blazes did the hot feet come from? Did you walk over coals on your way home? Did you think I couldn’t handle it myself?”

Jade snarled at the burns that were covering his arms and legs. “Well apparently you could not! But that’s not why I came, it is because someone else is coming for you, and that explosion of light earlier showed them exactly where you were!”

“Who?” Karkat asked, but the moment it left his lips he realized he needn’t bother ask. He had been so distracted by the fight, he had not noticed that the walls were awash in red and blue. The air was alive with sirens, and through Eridan’s massive window, he could see a fleet of police cars massed around the mansion’s front lawn.

“How long have they been sitting pretty out there, and why did none of us notice?!”

Eridan shrugged, and Jade continued to frown. “I raced them here, and slipped past the gate right as they were pulling up. They’ve been here as long as I have.”

“And why haven’t they done anything yet? Where’s the ‘PUT YOUR HANDS UP’ or the ‘COME OUT UNARMED’ or whatever the hell they shout these days?”

“They are probably taking time to assess the situation and figure out if we are all monsters, or if there is a hostage, or—“ Jade stopped for a moment and sniffed at the air. Her ears twitched and her head snapped towards the door. With a growl, she continued: “Or they’ve already done that, and they are about to arrive!”

Surely enough, the sound of footfalls on the staircase echoed into the room, and three armed officers burst into the room. At the front of the group was a blonde man wearing ridiculously large shades that looked like they were ripped straight from a buddy cop movie, and he was flanked by two trolls, one with red sunglasses and the other with 3-D glasses. They looked bizarre for a group of cops, but if Karkat had learned anything over the past two weeks, bizarre usually meant dangerous.

“Hands up where we can see them, and no funny moves, or we pump you fuller with lead than a number two pencil coming hot off the factory line.” drawled the blonde cop.

Jade tilted her head. “But aren’t they made of graph—“

 _“Hands up where we can see them.”_ he repeated with an edge to his voice.

Jade and Eridan slowly raised their hands, and Karkat followed suit, none too happy about it. “Why should we trust you not to just shoot us dead now while we can’t attack back?” He would at least have the advantage of not dying through blood loss if he were shot, but he’d be in trouble if a bullet hit one of his still-vital organs. Hopefully, the police were not aware of that, and he could tank a shot or two if things went sour. But what about Jade? If she took a shot, she was toast, and Karkat had no idea if a vampire’s bite would react well to her wolfish genes.

“We won’t shoot ‘cauth that’d be a hell of a lot of paperwork. Ith such a wathe of time.” lisped the 3-D weirdo in the back.

“Alright, alright. Let’s get the fuck out of here, then.” Karkat took a step forwards, hands still up in the air, but he was reluctant to move any further.

 _Think fast, Vantas. How are you going to get everyone out of here?_ Karkat glanced around the room, seeing no escape route. Could they use the organ, the curtains, something in the room as a weapon? No. Escape through the window? No, behind them there was only another sea of police, waiting for them to try and escape. Dammit, why couldn’t Eridan’s room have been decorated with something useful? Just a slew of bullshit gothic hipster paintings, and fenestrated planes, and…wait.

The electronic window to Karkat’s left, which had been displaying an image of a suspiciously Hogwarts-esque castle, flickered off and on for a brief moment. In place of the castle, Karkat could see a young woman with messy blonde hair and a bottle of alcohol clutched in her hand. She peered curiously into the room, and winked when she caught Karkat’s eye.

_Bingo._

There was a second plane in the room set up beside the police officers. Karkat tried to motion towards it with his hand without tipping them off. Roxy seemed to get the idea, making a soft ‘o’ with her expression, and dashing away from the window. If she could just break the window open and distract the cops long enough for an escape…

“Come on, get your asses in gear, we don’t have all night!” barked the blonde cop. “Move very slowly, arms where we can see ‘em, and step towards us.”

The three of them did as instructed, Karkat silently praying that Roxy found the right window in time. How many were there on Earth? How would she be able to locate the precise connection he needed? Some kind of computer program? Dumb luck? An intuitive connection to whatever bullshit pseudoscience these windows ran on? Whatever it was, she only had a half a minute at most to get it right.

And what about Jade and Eridan? There was no way for him to clue them into this last-ditch plan of his and Roxy’s. He could only hope they’d know how to react when the time came.

One step forwards, and nothing happened. Two steps, and nothing. Three, and nothing. Where was she? Four steps, then five, and then six, and still nothing. He, Jade, and Eridan were halfway across the room, moving as slowly as they could, and still there was nothing. Another step, and another, and…

_Crash!_

The female cop in the red glasses swung her head towards the fenestrated plane just in time to take a wine bottle to the face. It smashed open and she fell to the ground, shouting and writhing. The blonde cop turned to look at her and Karkat barrelled towards him. As he charged he felt a blast of white light surge past him into the 3-D cop, blasting him against the wall. Karkat tackled the blonde cop to the ground and was rewarded with a faceful of spit and a protest of pain from his burned arms, and the cop wrestled him away, struggling for his gun. A sharp _bang_ pierced Karkat’s gut and his mind exploded into pain. Somewhere far in the distance, in another world, Jade was howling, Eridan shouting, Roxy clambering through the broken window. But his world was one of burning pain, one defined by a single bullet and a single man with ridiculous shades and a gun in his hand, ready to fire again. Karkat tried to focus through the whirl of shouts and colours and sudden nausea and everything seemed to turn red, and he felt a familiar tugging sensation at his wrists. He could see – no, he could _feel_ every vein in the cop’s body, and feel the blood thumping through him, rushing to his fingers to pull the trigger again. Karkat pushed forwards and the blood pushed with him, and with a yell and a mighty heave he threw his remaining energy into hurling the cop straight through the window. With a scream and another crash, the man was gone, and Karkat was left lying on the ground, exhausted, with a bullet hole in his aching gut.

Jade’s face swam through the blur and the pain and she grabbed his hand, clutching onto it for dear life. Her paw-like palm felt odd against his hand, though the soft fur surrounding it was weirdly comforting.

“Karkat?! Are you okay, how badly hurt are you?”

He coughed, long and loud, and felt like he was going to heave up a lung. “…been…better.”

“Come on, we have to get through the window, if you can just stand for a moment…”

That wasn’t likely. Karkat gave his best effort regardless, forcing himself up onto one knee, and using Jade as his support in his herculean attempt at standing. The moment he was on his feet the dizziness struck, and he wanted nothing more than to crash back down, but Roxy was there on his other arm helping him up.

“Oh, sure, he gets both the women helpin’ him, an’ what do I get?”

“Shut the fuck up, Eridan!” Jade’s voice had never sounded so beautiful.

Together, Jade and Roxy were able to hoist Karkat up and carry him towards the window. They set him down on the ledge, keeping a strong grip on him.

“Now, this is gonna hurt a little bit, so be tough for us ok big boy?”

Karkat grimaced. “…what do you mean…hurt…?”

Roxy pushed him through the window and gravity seemed to flip, and next he knew he was plummeting towards a gaping hole in his new, void-like reality. He flew through the window on the other side and landed with a grunt in a soft pile of plush. It softened the blow but the fall itself had not been kind to his gunshot wound, and a fresh wave of skull-splitting pain threatened to rend him apart. When he managed to open his eyes and surface from the pile, he found himself sitting in a cramped apartment room alongside his friends, Eridan, and a blonde man with triangular shades.

“Dirk Strider,” the man said, offering a hand which Karkat refused to shake. “And may I be the first to congratulate you for serving my snotty brother his ass?”

**Author's Note:**

> As inspired by bloodtier.tumblr.com


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